Appreciating Everything – Even Cataracts

It would be an enormous challenge for any author to compete with the iconic Dr. Seuss. One of the first books of his that my mother read to me was, “And to Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street.” As young Marco is walking to school he sees a plain horse and wagon. In his imagination, it morphs into an elephant pulling a sleigh that races by—followed by an entire circus. So enamored was I with Dr. Seuss and that book that when I was old enough to start school and our class had “Show and Tell”—I told some whoppers! The camel I rode to school, the lion that chased me. Instead of admitting that I forgot to bring my sack lunch to school, I told the teacher that a lion chased me and I fed it my peanut butter sandwich to stick its teeth together so it couldn’t bite me.

I have cataract surgery scheduled for next week. I will miss that cataract. I’ve seen some amazing sights through my foggy lens. Sightings of large black panthers have been reported around the UK, mostly in England. I had my own sighting recently walking Savannah. Except mine turned out to be a large tree stump with new ear-shaped growth on both sides of it.

Tonight, I discovered a small new glass dish that I didn’t know we had. We don’t. When I attempted to pick it up…it turned into a reflection on the bottom of another bowl.

Fortunately, I don’t have a cell phone, and thus don’t carry one on my walks, because I saw a robber hiding behind a trailer waiting to break into a house on our street. Since I didn’t have a phone, I couldn’t hit the speed dial and connect to the police department, which was fortunate. It was actually a tall, thin black bin with rope tied around the overspill to keep the wind from scattering it.

Then there is the sign at the corner of an adjoining street that became a man in an overcoat walking toward me; the cute little hedgehog that transformed into a street sweeping brush turned upside down; the leftover fried chicken in the fridge that disappointingly turned into a dollop of leftover mashed potatoes topped with gravy.

And the crowning adventure: I took Savannah on a long walk a few nights ago and became lost. We’ve lived here for nearly five years. For one thing, after Guy Fawks Night last year on November 5, Savannah was so traumatized by fireworks that she quit going on walks at night. Eventually, the days grew lighter, and she resumed her evening walks. However, now the days are short again. After Savannah and I left—darkness fell. I hadn’t been out walking in our neighborhood at night for nearly a year. And my cataract shattered the light from the line of streetlights into hundreds of strange shapes that warped everything I saw. So…I was lost.

Fortunately, a teen with a skateboard rescued me. Says I, “Could you tell me where the school is?”

Says she with a stare that would wilt a newly picked cabbage, “You’re standing in front of it.” Then—probably fearing I was a potential kidnapper opening up an absurd line of conversation—she fled.

I turned around. I was standing in front of the street sign for our road.

Yes, indeed. I’m no Dr. Seuss—but I will miss my cataract. It’s been an adventure.

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Mow That Grass!

One of the places we lived when I was a child was an old antebellum house in Georgia that survived Sherman’s march to the sea. A former carriage road ran in front of the graceful (but falling down) house which was serviced by an outhouse just off the carriage road. The house had no bathroom, no running water. A log cabin off to one side of the house and surrounded by a sea of yellow daffodils in the spring was the first slave cabin in our county. The house had history galore…but no comfort.

The highway ran behind the house instead of in front of it. Every school morning we had a long trek down the red clay driveway to the bus stop. Because the field surrounding the house was by default our front yard, one of my jobs was to mow it with a push mower. Mowing the actual front yard that adjoined the carriage road was a relatively quick and easy job except for twice—once when a swarm of bees took objection to the mower and once when I moved some debris out of the way and unknowingly disturbed a wasp nest. Mowing the three-acre back yard/front yard, however, was pretty much an all-day job.

No one else in the family—parents, grandmother, six younger siblings—wanted to mow. They rather questioned my sanity for enjoying the arduous task. That’s because they didn’t know my secret.

My secret was that even though I pushed the mower through grass and weeds, picking up rocks that were in the path, and avoiding harmless snakes and baby rabbits—I wasn’t just mowing the yard. I was building stories. With every forward thrust of the mower characters emerged and conversations evolved. Every time I tugged the mower to life with the pull rope and started through the enormous field—new stories, new conversations, new book plots materialized from the green expanse in front of me.

I don’t remember if I ever came in from mowing and wrote down any of the stories. I rather doubt it. I was probably too hot, too tired, too sweaty—and with no running water in the house and no bathroom—I couldn’t jump into the shower and wash off the sweat. With a household of ten and no privacy, baths were sponge baths in a basin and timing them right for the sake of modesty was challenging. Nonetheless, I loved to mow. I still do.

Any physical task that requires more brawn than brain is an ideal opportunity to people my head with characters, conversations, and story plots. It’s not work, it’s not a chore—it’s an exercise in imagination building.

The Bible says, “Whatever your hand finds to do, do with all your might,” Ecclesiastes 9:10.

Work presents an opportunity for imagination building.

Amazon.com: Stephanie Parker McKean: Books, Biography, Blog, Audiobooks, Kindle